Maritime Disorder in the Indo-Pacific Region

1 Março 2018, 10:00 • Shiv Kumar Singh

Currently there is no viable governance model for managing maritime security challenges in the Indo-Pacific region. This dangerous reality has existed for a long time, but is being worsened amidst mounting territorial disputes, rivalry in safeguarding Sea Lanes of Communications (SLOCs), and resources extraction. Sovereignty clashes in the East and South China Seas (ESCSs) have an enduring feature due to their connection with domestic politics driven by nationalism and election cycles, and defy the deepening trend of economic interdependence/ integration in the region. In the race between regional efforts to formulate mechanisms of crisis prevention in dealing with overlapping territorial claims, for example, the Sino-ASEAN negotiation for establishing a Code of Conduct in the South China Sea (SCS), and envelope pushing by certain disputants, the former is a lot weaker and slower than the latter, and heralds a further escalation of tension in the maritime domain. This demonstrates the urgency for creating an abiding oceanic governance regime on the one hand, and a mission-impossible reality on the other, thanks to the rigidness of sovereignty issues. This essay argues that the situation will become more tense before a turnaround is achieved due to a crisis that forces all parties to seek commonly acceptable rules of the game—that is, the basics needed for an institutionalised governance system in the Indo-Pacific maritime region.

 

The US Pivot policy focuses on continuing maritime dominance, especially vis-à-vis China’s rising naval power, to the effect of squeezing China’s strategic space in the maritime domains from the near-sea areas (the ESCSs) to the Indian Ocean/West Africa regions. The US naval Pivot strategy gives rise to an island chain strategy embedded in geostrategic features of the first and second island chains in the Pacific. Through enhanced allied force redeployment, a horizontal S-Shape string of pearls stretching from Alaska to West Africa becomes increasingly visible, readily made usable for blockading Chinese strategic waterways. Threats to Chinese SLOC safety are both realistic and serious. In a way, USA’s advocacy of freedom of navigation is legally undisputable; but it is also part of its control of the maritime security of other nations—for example, through close-in spy activities near Chinese strategic military bases—and thus perpetuates Asian maritime governance disorder. The unexpected ADIZ (Air Defense Identification Zone) imposition will produce a far reaching strategic impact on the regional status quo in the years ahead. While China sees it simply as a copy of ADIZ practices of Japan, Australia, and a number of countries that require the flight report of all aircraft transiting their ADIZs, and thus address the unfair status quo, many of its neighbours get worried over this move, and see strategic ambition behind it. This endeavour will exert long term security consequences. Despite China’s ADIZ rationality in regard to its long term maritime interests, it appears to have been a premature decision, given the backlashes it has generated. There is no urgent need to have it right now. Yet, with careful and expedient enforcement, the Chinese ADIZ may not escalate tension in the short run, as observers fear. If this is indeed the case, the US-centric status quo in the regional security order will not be seriously upset in the foreseeable future. Yet, the ADIZ serves a notice to the region that the status quo has to change in due time.